Title: Great Men as Supreme Court Justices: Leadership and Cohesion in the Warren and Burger Courts.
1Great Men as Supreme Court Justices Leadership
and Cohesion in the Warren and Burger Courts.-
- Capstone Presentation
- By
- Geoff Warren
2The Warren Court (1953-69) The Burger Court
(1969-86)
- Would the liberal/activist doctrine of the Warren
Court be struck by the more Conservative Burger
Court?
3Why would the more conservative Burger Court
leave much of the Warren Court civil liberties
and civil rights doctrine in place but attack the
Warren Court First Amendment doctrine?
- The Burger Court lacked the cohesion marked by
the Warren Court as well as the strong leadership
provided by Earl Warren.
4The Warren Court
- The Warren Court was an activist body that played
the role of a super legislature. - -obscenity, school prayer, libel, criminal
defendant rights, desegregation, gerrymandering,
the right to privacy, and equal protection
doctrine.
5 Liberal Wing
- Earl Warren
- Hugo Black
- William O. Douglas
6Moderate Liberals
- William J. Brennan
- Arthur J. Goldberg
7Conservative Justices
- John Marshall Harlan
- Potter Stewart
- Felix Frankfurter
- Charles E. Whittaker
- Harold H. Burton
- Sherman Minton
- Stanley F. Reed
8Unclassified
- Tom C. Clark
- Byron R. White
9Brown v. Board of Education
- -Plessy v. Ferguson
- -separate but equal
- -not equal but separate
- -majority decisions to unanimous decisions
10Earl Warren
- -forged coalitions
- -directed the evolution of law
- -compromise and consensus building
11The Burger Court
12The Warren Majority
- Abe Fortas
- Thurgood Marshall
- William J. Brennan
- William O. Douglas
- Byron White
- Hugo Black
13Conservatives
- Warren Burger
- Potter Stewart
- John Marshall Harlan
- Harry A. Blackmun
- William Rehnquist
- Lewis Powell
- John Paul Stevens
- Sandra Day OConnor
14Conference
- -less time in Conference
- -less time for collective deliberation and
consensus building - -less agreement on Court rulings
- -greater number of separate opinions
15Miller v. California
- -assign a Justice to produce a memorandum
- -consensus formed and Justice picked to write
opinion - -sharpened confrontations between opposing policy
preferences. - -Burger and Brennan openly compete for votes
- -bare majority accepts Burgers
16Warren Burger
- -scorned by Warren holdovers as well as new
appointees - -often unprepared for conference
- -willing to change position in conference just to
reach majority - -product of the Nixon Whitehouse
17Statistical Analysis
- -The Burger Court from 1969-1980 averaged 138
institutional and issued 43 separate opinions, 45
concurring opinions, and 105 dissenting opinions. - -The Burger Court issued about two times the
number of concurring opinions and 3 times the
number of separate opinions. - -Burger Court 52 days to complete an opinion and
the Warren Court 35. - -Warren Court averaged 8 cases a year of 5-4
votes, the Burger Court in first year 18. - -Between 1901 and the last year of the Warren
Court, there were 51 cases decided by plurality
opinion. The Burger Court handed down 111 in
total.
18Burger Courts Passive Activism
- -helped to solidify judicial activism by means of
a passive course of decision making - -reversals of Warren Court precedents never
materialized - -Brown v. Board of Education, Reynolds v. Sims,
and Miranda v. Arizona still intact - -secondary landmark precedents also intact
- -New York Times v. Sullivan, Griswold v.
Connecticut, and Engel v. Vitale
19The Activist Burger Court
- -became an activist court
- -In 16 terms, the Warren Court invalidated 19
provisions of federal statues. - -In the 1st through 13th terms of the Burger
Court, it struck down 24. - -Buckley v. Valeo, National League of Cities v.
Usery, and Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v.
Marathon Pipeline Co.
20Activism in Civil Rights
- -continued Warren Courts activism
- -two recurring issues the desegregation of
urban school districts and the legality of
racially discriminating effects in the absence of
discriminating purpose - -Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
21Conservative First Amendment Doctrine
- -link between Burger Courts free speech
decisions and traditional property interests - -Burger Court respectful of free speech when it
didnt conflict with property interests - -major concept that the primary office of civil
liberties is to safeguard property and contract. - -Spence v. Washington and First Bank of Boston v.
Bellotti - -Carey v. Brown and United States Postal Service
v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations
22Personal Privacy as opposed to equality
- -heard cases based on personal privacy as opposed
to equality - -autonomy rather than freedom
- -abortion Griswold v. Connecticut overturns
Maher v. Roe - -First Amendment Buckley v. Valeo
23The Courts and Their Generations
- -Warren Court activist but its generation was not
- -The Burger Court and its generation were
activist - -Burger Court responsive to the breakdown of the
New Deal - -Court should be active in defense of the values
esteemed by the generation
24In Conclusion
- -leadership of Earl Warren
- -Burger Court more activist than the Warren Court
- -personal property and personal privacy